Peeping Wall
1960
magna on canvas
In this early painting, with a simple matrix and only five colors, Davis allows the raw canvas to
peek through between washes of magna paint. Intended or not, the gaps generate additional, very
slim stripes that create “auras” around the classic bands.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Dr. Peppercorn
1967
acrylic on canvas
Davis helped pioneer expansive, environmental works, insisting, “My paintings should engulf.”
Although he disliked being linked to op art, many of his large paintings vibrate with a retinal
push–pull.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Limelight/Sounds of Grass
1960
magna on canvas
A perfectly balanced square holds a sequence of stripes in serene yellow, blue, and green. The
title relates not only to the work’s dominant color and theatrical illumination, but also to the
possibility of a Zen-like sensory experience.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Untitled
1962
magna on canvas
At first glance, the intense primary colors of this canvas may simply suggest a symbol, such as a
flag. Davis, however, asks us to look more slowly and intently: “You must be patient. All of the
information is not immediately available.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Wall Stripes No. 3
1962
acrylic on canvas
Davis described his modular works as architectural because they incorporated the wall on which
they were hung. These works, known as “planks,” may have influenced minimalist sculptor
Donald Judd, who reviewed and admired them in Davis’s 1963 New York gallery show.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Artist
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Wall Label Text, Gene Davis: Hot Beat
11-3-16/cr
Page 2 of 7
Long John
1968
acrylic on canvas
Some see Davis’s stripes as aspirational and, especially in this narrowed format, soaring beyond
the canvas. His stripes, in effect, suggest movement to infinity.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Woodward Foundation
Gothic Jab
1968
acrylic on canvas
“For some reason I do not entirely understand, I like to have my stripes taller than a man.” A
narrow column of vertical stripes more easily suggests a human or superhuman ratio.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Artist
Black Grey Beat
1964
acrylic on canvas
The Museum of Modern Art included Black Grey Beat in a groundbreaking 1965 exhibition The
Responsive Eye. The curator, William Seitz, placed Davis among the “color imagists [who] are
poetic, even romantic in approach,” freely choosing bold colors for their “billboards.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift from the Vincent Melzac Collection
Raspberry Icicle
1967
acrylic on canvas
The radiant hue of its namesake fruit manages to unify the complexity of color in this work.
Davis later said about this mesmerizing canvas: “I was doing big, big work. . . . I equated that
with quality, bigness with quality.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum Purchase
Hot Beat
1964
acrylic on canvas
Davis placed colors without a preconceived plan: “My whole approach is intuitive. Sometimes I
simply use the color I have the most of and worry about getting out of trouble later.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Woodward Foundation
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Wall Label Text, Gene Davis: Hot Beat
11-3-16/cr
Page 3 of 7
Triple Jump
1962
oil and magna on canvas
This title acknowledges the eye movement required as a viewer tries to reconcile the intricate
verticals with the equal-length, stolid horizontals. Davis enjoyed taking such risks and thwarting
expectations.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Red Baron
about 1966
acrylic on canvas
Davis often broke his own rules. In Red Baron he juxtaposed stripes of different widths and sets
of colors. He identified such visual conflict as “inherent in my personality . . . a schizoid quality.
. . . I’ve been hung up on paintings that are split down the middle.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Red Witch
1966
acrylic on canvas
Davis relished grand-scale, complex works that fill one’s field of vision. At the Corcoran Gallery
of Art, he encircled viewers by striping the rotunda twice (in 1975 and 1982). In Philadelphia
and Lewistown, NY, he painted streets in colorful stripes; in the second instance he turned a park
into the world’s largest painting.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Flower Machine
1964
magna on canvas
The title of this work reflects the mechanical process Davis perfected during the 1960s, outlining
his stripes in pencil with a straight board. Stripes of equal width emphasize color, he said, and
“prevent the eye from becoming overly aware of the composition.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Two Part Blue
about 1964
magna on canvas
Davis achieved a machine-like hard edge with masking tape. Even though he rejected visible
brushwork for a flat application of color, he still allowed for imperfections—like the slight
seepage of paint between stripes and some evidence of his hand. In later works produced in the
1970s, he began to paint freehand, brushing paint along pencil lines.
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Florence Coulson Davis
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Wall Label Text, Gene Davis: Hot Beat
11-3-16/cr
Page 4 of 7
Timeline
1960
Davis abandons “throwing paint with the best of them” and commits to a single form—
the stripe. It’s a “trite subject,” he says, just as “the American flag and Campbell’s soup
cans and comic strips are trite.”
1961
A Dupont Circle gallery devotes its entire space to Davis’s first solo show of stripe
paintings. At the event, some viewers sniff, “Awnings!” and one remarks that he is
reminded he needs new slipcovers.
1962
Davis shows five horizontal planks: four in solid colors, one striped. To the artist’s
surprise, an architect purchases them for $800—Davis’s first sale. Soon after, he
recommits to verticals, sensing that horizontals evoke landscape.
1963
Davis describes this time as an exciting period: “Optimism was in the air” during the
Kennedy era, and artists adopt “a common denominator” of bright colors and geometric
shapes. Poindexter Gallery becomes his first New York dealer.
1964
Star-making critic Clement Greenberg selects Davis plus five other Washington artists
for a trend-defining exhibition, Post-Painterly Abstraction, at the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art. The six share a passion for color and a dislike of thick paint and visible
brushstrokes.
1965
The Washington Gallery of Modern Art mounts Washington Color Painters, a showcase
for Davis, Thomas Downing, Morris Louis, Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, and Paul
Reed. All of the artists soak vibrant magna or acrylic paint into raw cotton canvas.
1966
Defying the easy drama of grand-scale works, Davis creates his first “micros”—tiny
canvases he carries to his New York gallery in a Sucrets tin. He begins using even
brighter colors, which he credits to a newly felt, personal optimism.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Wall Label Text, Gene Davis: Hot Beat
11-3-16/cr
Page 5 of 7
1967
Davis shows his “micro” paintings, stretched canvases (most one-inch square), in D.C.,
and a large stripe painting at New York’s Jewish Museum. He advertises for students in
the Washington Post and holds classes at his studio above a Richard Nixon campaign
headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue.
1968
With a $40,000 commission for a sixty-foot painting titled Sky Wagon for the Albany
Mall Project in New York, Davis quits his job as a magazine editor to paint full time. He
attends the opening of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, then called the National
Collection of Fine Arts, and proudly stands beside his own small striped canvas.
1969
Davis cooperates in staging a “Giveaway” at a black-tie event in the Mayflower Hotel.
Fifty copies of his painting Popsicle executed by others are dispersed by lottery. The
event intends to signal that the art market is irrational, art is a “priceless” commodity, and
the “color school” has closed.
Quotations
Enter the painting through the door of a single color. And then, you can understand what my
painting is all about. ---Gene Davis, 1975
I am like the jazz musician who does not read music but plays by ear. I paint by eye. ---Gene
Davis, 1971
During the sixties I wanted an intensity of color that almost hurt…. Maybe the times called for it.
It seemed to feel right . . . to have color that leaped right off the wall. ---Gene Davis, 1982
I am more interested in interval than color. The color becomes a means of defining interval. --Gene Davis, 1971
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Wall Label Text, Gene Davis: Hot Beat
11-3-16/cr
Page 6 of 7
I never plan my color more than five stripes ahead and often change my mind before I reach the
third stripe. ---Gene Davis, 1971
Make good art for the moment, and time will take care of the rest. ---Gene Davis, 1978
The only place to go in art is too far. ---Gene Davis, 1979
Each painting has a life of its own. … I let the painting seduce me. ---Gene Davis, 1979
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Wall Label Text, Gene Davis: Hot Beat
11-3-16/cr
Page 7 of 7